Had an unexpected opportunity to speak with the MAC commish last night. Nice guy. A few takeaways from our 20-minute conversation:

1. No new members on the horizon. Says the MAC has learned its lesson re east coast teams. "Unless UConn (and UMass) is willing to pay us a large annual fee and guarantee men's and women's bball games at home, they bring no value."

2. Expects an announcement on Ohio AD within the next 2.5 weeks. Said Mark Wilson was on the list of prospects but believes the school might be aiming higher.

3. Has "little or no concern" about losing a member. Does not believe Buffalo would be interested in AAC.

4. Marshall will never again be a member of the MAC. "First, they would be an academic outlier. Second, our presidents know their history and values. Bad fit."

5. Said he would love to see Frank Solich run the table in the MAC this year. "He's on the verge of becoming our winningest coach and I'd love to have him do it with a championship on his resume."

SBH, Did you ask him what the MAC would do when KSU and UA merge? ;-)

I think Buffalo would jump in a heartbeat if the AAC came calling unless the financials would be impossible. Even then I think they would jump and worry about the fall later.

If C-USA ever were to implode, Marshall would be in a precarious spot as the MAC or Sun Belt would be their only realistic landing spots. They did have some rivalries going with a few Sun Belt schools when all were I-AA in the SoCon.

Not crazy. NIU and Buffalo probably have the worst travel budgets in the MAC, so the additional travel wouldn't be too burdensome. But there are few MAC teams that would even get a look from the AAC. NIU and Toledo have the rep and proximity to decent TV markets, so they would be possibles. Buffalo has the TV market, but their 1A history is lacking (73-143 since 2001) although they've improved under Leipold. All three would have the smallest stadium in the AAC by about 5,000 although Buffalo could use Ralph Wilson Stadium even though it would be about half an hour from campus. The rest of the MAC schools probably wouldn't even be considered because of their small media markets, lack of success in major sports, and/or smaller stadiums. Besides, as has been discussed regarding MAC expansion, I'm sure the AAC is willing to cut their TV pie eleven ways instead of twelve for a while.

Interesting that in this Buffalo News article (linked below) the AD didn't want to comment on leaving the MAC, rather just issued the obligatory statement that they liked the conference. Some of you rightfully mentioned travel schedules, which is even crazier than I thought. I didn't realize that in some women's sports in the American Athletic Conference have to travel to San Diego to play associate member schools. Also in the Conference USA, UTEP and Charlotte must ring up the travel budget for their prospective schools. Imagine having to schedule those events for non-revenue generating sports.

I could see a Northern Illinois, Buffalo, Marshall, Cincinnati, Memphis etc trying to woo schools to a new conference to balance out travel nightmares. If you could add UCF as your furthest southern school and pick off someone in between, it would cut down on costs and allow football schools to schedule more non-conference juggernauts.

https://buffalonews.com/2019/07/08/ub-buffalo-bulls-ameri... /

Yeah, it shows. He was bemoaning our annual collapse in a winnable late-season game.

Interesting conversation with Steinbrecher. Anything said about mens basketball?

I assume self-preservation is the only reason why this is not attempted by every coach. Better to pick up 3 wins vs. lower levels than have 3 P5 losses. On the one hand, uhg. On the other, I get it... meh, nevermind I don't get it.... Go big!

He has no right to say that unless he quits pushing so hard for MAC teams to schedule 70% home games in OOC. Where has that gotten us as a conference?

Bingo!